He thought about it for a moment and then shook his head. It didn’t make sense. Meeks was an agent for Rosen’s, and a man in his position would have been thoroughly checked. Besides, there were too many ways that Meeks could be caught in such a thing. Miles knew of Ben’s contact with the store and the reason for that contact. The funds he had cabled could be traced. Copies of the confirmation letter from Meeks were with his safe papers. And the ad for Landover’s sale was public knowledge.
He forced the doubts from his mind and concentrated on the drive ahead. His anticipation of what lay ahead had been working on him for weeks. He was so keyed up that he could barely contain himself. He had slept poorly last night. He had been awake before sunrise. He was susceptible to all sorts of half-baked ideas.
He reached the entrance to Skyline Drive in a little more than thirty minutes and turned south onto it. The two lane highway wound steadily upward into the Blue Ridge, weaving through the tangle of forest and mountain rock, rising into the late November sunlight. Panoramic views spread away to either side, the sweep of the national forestlands and parkways slipping past in breathtaking still life. Traffic was light. He encountered three cars traveling in the opposite direction, families with camping gear and luggage, one pulling a fold-up trailer. He came across no one driving south.
Twenty minutes later, he caught sight of the turn-around with its green sign stenciled with the number 13 in black. Easing off the gas pedal, he pulled the New Yorker off the parkway onto the gravel wayside and came to a stop before the courtesy phone and weather shelter. He climbed out of the car and looked about. To his right, the wayside ran several dozen feet to a chain and post guard rail and a promontory that overlooked miles of forestland and mountain ridges comprising a small part of the national park. To his left, across the deserted roadway, the mountainside lifted into the morning sunlight, a maze of trees and rocks wrapped in thin trailers of mist. He stared upward toward the mountain’s summit, watching the mist swirl and stir like ribbons drawn through the air. The day was still and empty, and even the passing of the wind made no sound.
He turned, reached into the car and took out his overnight case. It was really little more than a glorified duffel bag filled with a few odd possessions he had thought to bring a bottle of his beloved Glenlivet to be saved for a special occasion, toiletries, paper and pens, several books, a couple sets of boxing gloves, recent copies of magazines he was still reading, tape, antiseptic, an old sweatsuit, and running shoes. He hadn’t bothered with much in the way of clothing. He knew that he would probably be better off wearing whatever they wore in Landover.
He closed the car and locked it, the keys inside. He slipped his billfold into his duffel, glanced about once again, and crossed the roadway. He was dressed in a light sweatsuit of navy blue with red and white piping and navy blue Nikes. He had brought the Nikes and the running shoes because he couldn’t decide what better to wear on a journey such as this and because he doubted that there would be anything more comfortable in shoes once he got where he was going. It was odd, he reflected, that Meeks hadn’t bothered with any instructions about clothing or personals.
He stopped at the far side of the roadway and scanned the forested slope before him. A small stream ran down off the rocks through a series of rapids that flashed silver in the dappled sunlight. A pathway crisscrossed the stream’s banks and disappeared into the trees. Ben hitched the duffel over one shoulder and started up.
The pathway wound in a series of twists and turns along the stream, leveling off at intervals in small clearings where wooden benches provided a resting place for the weary hiker. The stream gurgled and lapped against the earthen banks and over rock falls, the only sound in the late November morning. The parkway and the car disappeared behind him as he climbed, and soon there was only the forest to be seen. The climb grew less steep, but the forest closed about on either side, and the pathway became more difficult to discern. Eventually, the stream branched away into a cliff side that dropped from a great height, and the pathway ran on alone.